Even though The Gay Divorcee is a Fred and Ginger movie, the photo I’ve put up is of Edward Everett Horton and Betty Grable. Why? Because this (I think) is the only Fred and Ginger movie where EEH sings and dances. It certainly is the film with the most EEH in it. And even though it seems like EEH was in all the Fred and Ginger movies (he was in three of ten) it is the essence of EEH that we love so much about Fred and Ginger. If life is a Fred and Ginger movie, we’d all be lucky to be the EEH — along for the ride, cracking jokes, having jokes cracked on us, cracking open champagne, maybe saving the day at the end without knowing it and winding up happily ever after just by osmosis. In the meantime, our hearts aren’t broken, and we’re not goofily tap dancing around our furnished rooms every time we change clothes. As far as The Gay Divorcee is concerned, it might be my favorite Fred and Ginger film (I inexplicably gave it a mere B+ when I last saw it on 06/07/05.) It was their first as headliners, they meet cute (Bringing Up Baby totally steals this bit,) Ginger’s hair is curly and she’s just generably adoreable, there’s some fun anti-Italian bigotry (in a Chico kinda way,) and there’s a big musical number involving revolving doors! ‘Cause, like, when this movie was made Revolving doors were still, like, a new thing! Fascinating.
